Studies have found that sexual victimization adversely affects an individual’s psychological wellbeing, physical health, and behavior.
The current study examines the effects of sexual victimization on adolescent social networks. In particular, it seeks to determine whether
sexual victimization has an adverse influence on adolescent victims’ friendship networks. The study uses data from the National Longitudinal
Study of Adolescent Health to examine the effects of sexual victimization during childhood and early adolescence on adolescent friendship
networks. Multivariate regression models are estimated to assess whether sexual abuse is negatively associated with the victims’ popularity,
centrality, and density of their friendship networks. The analyses indicated that sexual victimization was associated with a decrease in
victims’ level of popularity and centrality within their friendship networks; there was no effect on the density of these networks. The
results suggest that sexual victimization adversely affects victims’ level of popularity and centrality within their friendship networks.
Combined with prior research, the results suggest that sexual victimization may exert harmful effects that extend across diverse
psychological and social domains.

Identifier:

FSU_FALL2017_Tomlinson_fsu_0071N_14191 (IID)

Submitted Note:

A Thesis submitted to the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Master of Science.